


the golden hour

by erebones



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Coming Out, Courting Rituals, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Gay Male Character, Language of Flowers, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, Oral Sex, Politics, Promises, Repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 09:10:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20863763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: Lorenz makes his customary evening pilgrimage to the bridge, and finds someone waiting for him.





	the golden hour

**Author's Note:**

> thank u jaz for reminding me that the word 'parapet' exists and saving me from a small existential crisis
> 
> Edit: NOW WITH [FANART](https://twitter.com/kyleenim/status/1179903272230047744?s=19) by the amazing @kyleenim!!!!!
> 
> Edit 2: and a GORGEOUS (nsfw) commission you can find [here](https://twitter.com/Kukumomoart/status/1236443012558921730/photo/1)!!!!!

The view from the bridge is exquisite this time of year. The moon is full and silvery in the sky, bathing the cathedral’s facade in a forgiving white that seems to wash away the cracks and crumbling cornices that persist even after a year of restoration. Unattended, wild roses climb the bridge’s weathered masonry. They spill over the top in thorny loops and whorls as though the blossoms themselves reach longingly for the stars. Beyond the edge of the monastery, the earth drops away into a deep chasm that spills a bustling river into the plains below, stretching away wide and endless as the mountains unravel like a quilt into the distant dark.

The roses are what draw Lorenz to the bridge night after night. Not generally at this hour: the sun has long since set, and he prefers to come when it’s still near the horizon, bestowing its warm glow across the lowlands and staining the river pink as poppies. But he spent the after-dinner hour poring over battle strategies with Claude and the Professor, and then got cornered in the library by an excitable Ignatz, and by the time he was able to make his escape the sun had set and the monastery grounds were dark and silent.

His boot heels click softly on the weather-worn stone, fingers grazing the edge of the parapet as he walks. Clouds scud across the moon’s unblemished face, mariners making their way headlong across the sky, and shadows follow in their wake like fish darting along the ocean floor. There is a slight breeze. It lifts the hair off the back of his neck and carries the scent of roses to him like a maiden beckoning him nearer—roses, and something else. Something less floral, more spicy. Ginger and cardamom, and the earthy smell of a day’s worth of sweat.

Lorenz hesitates. In the middle of the bridge is a figure, lonesome, cast in shadow as they lean against the side. Someone else has beat him to it.

He has an inkling of who it might be, and as he draws nearer, not bothering to mask his footfalls, his guess is proven right: Claude straightens away from the side and puts his hand to his breast, giving a short bow of greeting. _How… strangely proper of him. _

“Lorenz. I’m surprised to see you here so late.” There’s a curl of _knowing_ to his words as he adds, “I thought you preferred to come when the sun was still in the sky.”

Lorenz draws abreast of him and turns aside, bracing his hands on the parapet. The stonework is still warm to the touch without his gauntlets—a calming detail.

“I wasn’t aware you were watching me so closely, Claude.” He tries for _snippy_, but he’s tired. Even without his armor, dressed down to shirtsleeves and a simple but well-cut tunic, his shoulders ache with an unseen weight, drawing his chin to his clavicle as if it weighs ten stone.

Claude shifts beside him to mirror his pose. Together they look out over the moon-washed landscape, the fir-edged mountains, the slow meander of the silver river as it cuts an oxbowed path through the foothills. Lorenz wonders if they’re looking for the same thing: points of light marking the torches of their enemies marching on Garreg Mach. Unlikely, at this stage, but he cannot bring himself to rule out even the impossible. Not after what he’s seen.

“I’m sorry,” Claude says at last, surprising enough to draw him head-first out of his melancholia. “I had—I had to, if only as a formality—”

“Claude.” Just that one quiet word, and Claude falls silent. If only he’d known such a trick would work during their school days—how many arguments he would have won! He glances at Claude’s hands, free of their usual his marksman’s gloves. “Do not apologize for having me watched. I would expect no less, considering my… connections.” _Considering my father_.

“Still.” Claude clears his throat, like he’s trying to decide what to say. It’s incredibly unlike him—the future Alliance leader is rarely short of words. “As your General, I know it was necessary. But as your friend, I found it… distasteful.”

Lorenz shakes his head, hair sifting against his collar, even as a strange and subtle warmth eases between the spaces of his ribcage. “Your mind works in strange ways, Claude.”

Claude barks a laugh and puts the scenery behind him, arms folded over his chest. “Not the first time I’ve heard that. Not the first time I’ve heard it from _you_.”

“Nor the last, I daresay,” Lorenz murmurs. He reaches out, fingertips barely grazing the edge of a blooming rose. During the day its petals are a pale, demure yellow, but in the dark it almost seems to glow, kissed by moonlight and stark against the foliage of its brethren. He leans forward to breathe it in, elbows braced on stone. “Do you frequent this spot yourself, then? Or is this a special occasion?”

“I’ve been known to come by. Not all the time. When I can’t sleep, mostly.” He jerks his chin toward the cathedral, looming and statuesque. “Seteth suggested I pray to ease my nighttime worries, but I’ve never found much consolation there, no offense to the goddess. But the bridge is nice. And the roses are in full bloom.”

As if responding to his words, the delicate stem snaps in Lorenz’s hand and he’s left with a heavy blossom resting in his palm. A thought comes to him: fanciful, but the late hour inspires such frivolities. He turns to Claude and touches his shoulder lightly. He’s very warm, and solid through his clothes.

“Will you allow me?”

Claude’s eyes flash in the moonlight, wide with surprise as he half-turns toward Lorenz, lips parted on agreement. Lorenz can feel the weight of his gaze like a physical presence as he fastens the rose to Claude’s lapel.

“There.” Lorenz steps back and admires his handiwork. Claude is dressed much like he is, out of uniform and armor after hours, and the rose brings life and vitality to his simple chokha and sash. “A yellow rose for the yellow prince.”

“Lorenz—” Claude begins, sounding rather strangled. Unsure if he’s made a social blunder—Claude’s true parentage was given to him in confidence, and he’s still not entirely on even ground with regards to Almyran customs—Lorenz presses on hastily.

“The stem is too short for a vase, I’m afraid, but if you float it in a bowl of water it will look quite pretty, and last a few days at least. I’m quite fond of keeping a rose or two in my own chambers. I find they liven up the room, don’t you agree?”

“I… agree, yes. The Professor is fond of handing out flowers. I believe I have some lily of the valley on my desk at the moment.” Lorenz feels his stomach drop to his shoes for no reason he can discern. “They’re a bit wilted, though,” Claude continues, unaware. “If there’s a rhyme or reason to her choices, I can’t figure it out.”

Lorenz swallows past the strange tightness in his throat. “The Professor is very kind.”

“She is. Odd taste, but I won’t complain. It’s a nice gesture.” Claude worries his lower lip with his teeth. “You’ve received flowers from her before, yes?”

“Mm. Red roses, usually.” He touches his breast absently, where the lacquered metal rose usually rests. “It is the Gloucester family flower. We are—were—famous for our gardens.”

He wonders whether the gardens back home still thrive. His mother had been the one to tend them religiously, despite marrying into the Gloucester name, but with her practically bedridden these days, surely the famous roses have suffered for it. He feels a stab of grief. And then, sharper, the keen edge of remorse. A reprehensible instinct, to mourn a flower over his own mother. Entirely unbecoming of the son of a noble house—

“Lorenz.” Claude’s hand comes to rest on his arm, shaking him from the cruel circling of his thoughts. When Lorenz looks at him, his eyes are no longer sharp, but kind and crinkled at their edges. “I asked if you knew anything of flower meanings. Fódlan’s surely differ from—from what I am used to.”

“I beg your pardon. I know a little, yes. What is expected of a noble.” He draws a thin breath in through his nose and lets the roses fill his senses, heady and sweet—a brighter smell than the dark, cloying Gloucester rose, as if the high mountain air of Garreg Mach has lightened their bouquet. “I believe lily of the valley is… a _kind_ flower. Happiness, luck, good fortune, that sort of thing.”

“All sorely needed, these days,” Claude mutters under his breath.

“Just so.”

“And the roses?”

Lorenz hums. “Roses vary depending on the color. Red is… ah, generally of romantic intent.”

Claude laughs, carefree as it echoes off the stone and is swallowed in the soft hushing of the river far beneath their feet. “They suit you, then. I don’t think I’ve met anyone more romantic than you, Lorenz. Or is the good Professor… making declarations?”

Lorenz feels his face grow hot and his brows pinch together slightly, the closest he comes to scowling. “I highly doubt it.”

“Why? You are quite a catch, Lord Gloucester. And she’s a beautiful woman.” Claude’s voice takes on a whimsical tone, as though he’s reading aloud from the pages of one of Ashe’s fairy stories. “She may be a commoner, but I’d say she’s quite exceeded her rank—”

“Please do not speak to me of this,” Lorenz says in a bitter rush. He pushes away from the parapet, arms stiff by his sides. “I’ve intruded on your solitude long enough. Pray excuse me.”

He offers a bow and makes to turn away, but Claude catches his elbow before he can manage a single step. “Lorenz, I’m sorry. I was only teasing—but I was out of line.”

Lorenz works his tongue against the backs of his teeth, trying to dredge up a veneer of politeness. “You are forgiven. I apologize; the hour is late, and I truly should retire…”

Claude’s grip eases but does not release him, and Lorenz is too polite to tear himself free. So they are at a stalemate, standing but an arm’s length apart, Lorenz with his eyes on the ground and Claude… well. He can _feel_ Claude’s eyes burning into the nape of his neck as he says, quietly, “I respect you both too much to make fun. It was wrong of me. I know—we both know, quite well, her proclivities…”

“Her _proclivities_,” Lorenz scoffs, bristling now on the Professor’s behalf.

“I apologize—it’s—it’s strange to speak of,” Claude says, humbly. “I am not sure how…”

“Then let us not speak of it. It’s improper.” Still stiff, but less inclined to flee, Lorenze gently detaches himself from Claude’s hold. Claude lets him.

“I didn’t mean…” Claude tries again. “It’s different here. That’s all.”

“Different. How?” He hears himself ask it as though at a great distance. Such a topic of conversation has never crossed his lips before, and his hands shake slightly as he folds them together in front of himself, braced against warm stone.

“Almyra is a great deal less concerned with… with Crests, and producing proper amounts of heirs, and all of that.” Lorenz hears rather than sees Claude’s fingers tapping thoughtfully against the masonry—he still can’t bring himself to look at him head on. “I’ll be honest, I still can’t tell how much is taboo here and how much is just… uncommon.”

“Perhaps more common than you might think.” His heart is hammering against his chest. “But it is… considered uncouth to speak of it in polite company.”

“Well, that’s easy enough,” Claude laughs, “I’m not polite company. But,” and he sobers quickly, “as you said, we needn’t speak of it.”

Placated, though still liable to bolt at any moment, Lorenz shuts his eyes against the moonlight and lets the early summer breeze pass over him like a benediction. At his side, Claude is blessedly quiet. Until he isn’t.

“I, ah. I don’t particularly care. One way or another.” He doesn’t elaborate, but given the context of their previous conversation it isn’t difficult to put two and two together. Even so, Lorenz scrambles to comprehend the sum. When he says nothing, Claude offers a nervous chuckle, a desperate bid to ease the tension. “I hope that doesn’t… color your view of me.”

“It does,” Lorenz hears himself say. He hastens to add, before Claude can pull back that tender, secret offering, “Not in a bad way. It is… a lovely hue.” He pins his eyes to the roses in front of him, washed of color in the dark but still fragrant. “You were always an equitable sort.”

Claude laughs, sincerely this time, and squeezes Lorenz’s shoulder with good cheer. “A fine and noble way of putting it, Lorenz. How like you.”

It isn’t an accusation. A younger version of Lorenz might have taken it as one, but he knows Claude better now, better than almost anyone. He nods, accepting the compliment with quiet grace. Turns the idea over in his head and wonders if it is permissible—expected, even—to return the favor.

Time stretches untenably. The longer he waits, the more foolish he feels. Surely it would be better to state it as quickly as possible, while the conversation is still a conversation and not a series of stilted sentences pushed awkwardly into the silence between them, little coracles afloat in an unquiet sea. And yet his mind spins and spins, useless, like a wheel on a broken axle; his fingers lace and unlace together and his throat feels stoppered, refusing the ache of his tongue.

He _wants_ to speak—to confess, if he must call it that. But there is too much weighing on those words. For if he must confess, it will be part of a larger whole: a secret he has sworn to himself to take to the grave. A nobleman does his duty, and that is that. Whatever feelings he possesses, whatever ill-conceived affections, they will mean nothing when the war is over and they begin their normal lives, distanced from the adrenaline of battle, the bonds cultivated through the wrack and ruin of conflict.

A touch to his arm, gentle as anything. He startles without meaning to, but it’s only Claude—of course—his hand very warm and easy against his. “You’re tired,” he says. His eyes hold no guile. “Shall we walk back together?”

Lorenz opens his mouth to reply, but for the first time in recent memory, his strict upbringing fails him and he is silent. Gaping like a fish, or a fool, before the man he has come to… to care for. His mind stammers over the words, innocent as they are. He can only stare at Claude, dear Claude, his General, his _king_, and pray that somehow Claude sees through the veil of his silence to the words he longs to say out loud.

“No?” Claude ventures when Lorenz says nothing. His eyes drop to where their hands lay one against the other. “Lorenz, you’re trembling.”

“I’m sorry,” Lorenz whispers nonsensically. It’s the first thing he’s spoken in what feels like hours, though in truth it’s hardly been even a minute.

“Don’t apologize for _that_.” Brusque and warm, always warm, Claude gathers Lorenz’s hands into his own, chafing them briefly before holding them to the heat of his chest. “If you’re cold, we should head inside. I would offer you my cloak,” he adds, grinning, “but as you can see, I am _sans_ cloak, today.”

“It is… warm enough,” Lorenz rasps. He can feel Claude’s heartbeat through his clothes, slightly elevated.

“That’s good.” Claude is smiling at him, as though they are sitting down to tea having a perfectly normal conversation, not… whatever _this_ is. “You know, you never told me what yellow roses symbolize.”

It is an olive branch—a rope cast into a dark well. Lorenz reaches for it clumsily. “Ah! Yes, a… a yellow rose traditionally symbolizes… appreciation.”

“_Appreciation_,” Claude echoes, eyebrows lifted slightly.

“And… ah, platonic… affection.” _Love. Platonic **love**, you dunce_.

A little of the warmth in Claude’s smile bleeds away as he glances at the yellow rose in his lapel, and Lorenz realizes his mistake. “I see.” His grip relaxes slightly, as if waiting for Lorenz to pull away. “If I have misread anything, Lorenz, I apologize…”

“There are other meanings!” Lorenz says hastily. He takes his hands back at last, feeling foolish without Claude’s grip to hold them snug against his chest.

“Oh?”

“Joy, and comfort, and…” _Think of something. It doesn’t have to be true, just say it!_ “Sometimes, in the right context, a yellow rose can mean… unrequited love,” Lorenz lies. “Or rather, an expression of one-sided affection that is… romantic in nature.”

“I see.” Claude’s face is hard to read in the dark—a thicker cloud had come over the moon while Lorenz dithered, and he sorely misses her light. “What an unexpectedly… _complex_ flower.” Is he _laughing_ at him? “Pray tell, what is the context for…” He clears his throat and echoes, in an uncanny, clipped sort of tone that isn’t _quite_ a mimicry of Lorenz, “_an expression of one-sided affection that is romantic in nature_?”

Lorenz huffs a little, not quite a laugh. It sounds foolish, parroted back to him so, and his next words come to him as easy as breathing. “Generally offered one to another in perfect silence on a bridge over running water.” He glances skyward, where the moon hides demurely behind her veil of clouds. “Moonlight optimal, but not required.”

Claude laughs outright at this, though not as raucously as Lorenz surely deserves. “Is that so.” He reaches out, and Lorenz flinches toward him, a little, expecting a hand in his own. But Claude bypasses his hand entirely and instead touches his chin very lightly with the crook of a finger. Heat floods Lorenz’s face. Such a simple touch, and yet… “If I am off base,” Claude says softly, “I beg you to tell me now.”

To shake his head would knock his hand awry, and Lorenz cannot bear the thought—so, although his throat feels dry as dust, he whispers, “Pray, continue.”

Claude’s thumb extends and strokes his cheek as he steps closer. “You are so lovely, Lorenz. You have no idea how difficult it’s been not to stare at you this whole time.”

“So I am loveliest in the dark?” Lorenz asks dryly. “How flattering.”

Undeterred, Claude draws nearer still. Lorenz can feel the heat of his body, can practically taste his breath. Their noses are but a hairsbreadth apart. Claude has to lean up, Lorenz notes with no small amount of pleasure. And then Claude is kissing him, one hand to his jaw and the other to his waist, and Lorenz loses every thought in his head at once.

Claude kisses like he does everything else: boldly, with intent. Not always gracefully, but _earnest_, confident. Lorenz feels a dunce by comparison. He has had his share of practice, but never with a man, and the difference turns his knees to water. He can smell the slight spiciness of his beard, kept neat and well-oiled; he can taste the watered-down wine they’d shared over the war table, first in the corners of his mouth, stale, and then wet and warm on his tongue. Lorenz moans, brittle, shameless, the shell of his propriety cracked asunder by Claude’s open mouth.

“_Oh_,” he manages, an instinctive exhale, before they are pressed together again, Claude’s hand combing gently through his long hair. He reaches fumblingly for Claude and tangles his fingers in the sash that has fallen from his shoulders, a sailor lost at sea.

“Lorenz,” Claude murmurs, just for the joy of saying his name, and kisses him again, softer and swifter than before. He drags his short, blunt nails along Lorenz’s scalp, pulling his hair back from his face. Lorenz should stop him, should shake him off—but it’s too late.

The kiss breaks on a soft _ha_ of surprise. Claude tucks Lorenz’s hair behind his ear and stares, unabashed, at the silver hoop there. “I didn’t know you wore earrings.”

“Just the one,” Lorenz corrects him primly. He licks the tingling from his lips and tries to regulate his breathing, harsh and loud in the sudden stillness—he fancies his heartbeat could be heard from across the monastery.

“You know,” Claude says slowly, thumb tracing a hypnotic path through the fine lilac hairs around his ear, “jewelry carries great significance in Almyra.”

“Oh?”

“Earrings, especially. They are… a mark of status, sometimes. Or simply a way of communicating… intent. Politically and socially.”

Lorenz reaches up, emboldened, and touches the shell of Claude’s left ear. “This…?”

“A mark of royalty..” The corner of Claude’s mouth quirks up, almost rueful. “A bit of a tell, but so few people in Fódlan know a whit about Almyran customs.”

“You were always fond of courting disaster,” Lorenz says wryly. He tucks a whorl of dark hair behind Claude’s ear and lingers there, thumb to the short, coarse hair at his temple. Claude’s eyes are dark and vast, cast in shadow but somehow still luminous. Lorenz could fall into them, if he let himself.

“And this?” Claude asks, thumbing the simple silver hoop in Lorenz’s right ear. “Is there some… special significance?”

_As if he doesn’t know. _“I have read…”

“Have you?” he teases.

“Hush! I have read a little about Almyra, and I… I liked the simplicity of it. The elegance.”

Claude’s face softens with surprise. “You know, then. What it means.”

“Yes. I hope it was not presumptuous of me, to borrow such a practice without asking.” He bows his head. “It was only meant… for me. My hair hides it, most of the time. It is small and subtle and easily removed—”

“Lorenz. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” Claude’s hand on his chin is very tender as he leans in for a kiss, soft and shallow. “I understand. I do wish I’d seen it sooner, though—would have saved me a lot of late, wondering nights…”

Lorenz kisses back almost instinctively, loathe to pull away. “I thought perhaps Hilda would have told you.”

“Hilda?”

“She’s the one who did it.” His lips quirk against Claude’s cheek. “I think she enjoyed getting to inflict a little pain on me.”

“Ha! I don’t doubt it. Little monster.” His voice is fond. “But no, she didn’t… she loves her gossip, but she knows when something is important enough to keep to herself.”

Lorenz hums. “So much for having me watched…”

“Lorenz,” Claude says, utterly serious. Lorenz straightens a little under the weight of that voice, burred at the edges with subtle command. “As much as I love your voice, dearheart, I would really rather be kissing you right now, if you will allow it.”

_Dearheart. _Speechless, Lorenz can only dip his chin in acquiescence.

Claude takes his hand, kisses the knuckles sweetly. Lorenz swallows. But rather than leaning up to kiss him again, Claude turns, braces his hands on stone, and boosts himself up to sit on the parapet. The night sky frames him like a vast, cloud-studded canvas, and the wild roses curl at his hips and up around his shoulders, and Lorenz is breathless.

“There,” Claude says cheekily. “Finally on a bit of even ground.”

Lorenz steps between his knees, hands settling there delicately. Like this, Claude has the height advantage, if only slightly—in fact, he is at the perfect height for Lorenz to lean forward and rest his head against his broad chest. Claude trembles slightly, with surprise or stifled laughter, but his hands tangle readily in Lorenz’s hair and holds him close.

“Hey, hey. All right?”

“This is foolish,” Lorenz whispers. A bitter tang blooms at the back of his throat. This is a petty diversion, at best, given their situations—two men poised at the apex of their power, depending which way the war falls. “We should not be—”

Claude smoothes the hair back from his face and lifts his chin, forcing his gaze. The curve of his smile is invisible in the dark, but Lorenz can hear it in his voice when he asks, “Why not?”

Disbelieving laughter wheezes out of him like some sort of macabre death rattle. “You’re a smart man, Claude. You hardly need _me_ to explain why the two of us—two men, in our position…”

“_Our position_. Lorenz.” His tone is nearly scolding as his thumbs trace Lorenz’s cheeks. “Do you know why I’m doing this? Why any of us are doing this?”

Lorenz squirms beneath his scrutiny. “We are… protecting Fódlan. From further bloodshed.”

“_Tsk_. You have sat in on too many war councils to believe it’s that simple.”

“I know what you _intend_, Claude, and it is a noble cause to be sure. But such things don’t happen overnight. The political maneuvering required to even get the roundtable to agree to opening Fódlan’s Locket—why, it’s nearly unheard-of. Let alone restructuring the nobility…”

“Just because no one has made the attempt doesn’t mean it’s impossible.” Claude leans down and rests their foreheads together, and Lorenz can’t help closing his eyes, breathing him in. His gentle, calloused archer’s hands smooth down his jaw, his throat, coming to rest at the open cusp of his collar. “I’m going to need you, Lorenz. You know that, don’t you?”

Lorenz sighs and tries to conjure a little of his usual bravado. “As if you would get anywhere without me.”

“Exactly. And what better place to do it than by my side?”

He goes perfectly still. Though it’s too dark to make out any details, he peers into Claude’s face anyway, scrutinizing him for signs of a practical joke. “Claude. You cannot seriously be…”

“Proposing?” Claude finishes lightly. “Well, no. This is hardly the most fitting place or time. And anyway, it’s a bit premature—Edelgard may have fallen, but the war is far from over.”

Try as he might, Lorenz can find no shred of humor in his voice. Only sincerity, perfect and forthright. His hands tremble on Claude’s knees. He feels entirely stripped bare, as if before the goddess herself—every hidden wish and secret foible laid bare for Claude’s discerning gaze. “What are you saying, Claude? Are you suggesting that—that the Alliance would somehow accept some sort of… _union_ between us…”

“Men marry men in Fódlan,” Claude says with his customary surety. “Linhardt told me. And women marry women.”

“But the nobility—”

“What is this, then?” Claude demands. He strokes the hair back from Lorenz’s face, exposing his silver hoop to night air. A declaration of his preferences, of his private little defiance, if only for himself. “And what am I, but the product of a union between two people who should never have fallen in love?”

“But you—they—” Lorenz chokes to a stop, face hot. “You and I, we cannot… bear children…”

“So what? Fódlan nobility adopt heirs all the time. Look at Mercedes, or… well, Ashe is perhaps a bad example, but the point stands. The Alliance is a little more married to its blood relations, so to speak, but times are changing.” Claude bats his eyes, the effect slightly diminished by the poor light. “Would you not adopt heirs with me and raise them as our own, Lorenz?”

“Of course I would,” Lorenz snaps, “that’s not the issue.”

“Then what is?”

He takes a breath to voice it and pulls up short. A thousand blustering answers clamor in his mind, but they all boil down to the same result: he’s afraid. Of the future and what it holds. Of his father, despite leaving his desperation for Count Gloucester’s approval far behind him. Of _this_: the tenuous bond between them, jerking this way and that as they circle one another, scenting out the truth like bloodhounds.

“Lorenz?” Claude whispers.

“I don’t know,” Lorenz admits. He turns his head to kiss the palm of Claude’s hand, then the wrist, the place where his pulse flutters like a butterfly trapped beneath the skin. “I don’t know.”

“It’s all right to not know.” Claude leans down and brushes a kiss to his violet hair. “Just… think on it. When this is over, I’ll ask you again.”

Lorenz sighs and succumbs. “And I will have a better answer for you.”

“Good.”

Pleased with himself, Claude ducks his head to kiss him, and Lorenz sinks into it. Claude’s thighs are sturdy and muscular under his hands, and they flex slightly as Claude shifts his weight. Lorenz parts his lips and licks into Claude’s mouth delicately, relishing the taste of him.

“Mm.” Claude parts from him for a brief moment, but comes right back, head tilted for a deeper cut. It’s like he can’t stay away. Lorenz can sympathize. With renewed confidence, he slips his hands a little higher up Claude’s thighs, thumbs tracing the inseam of his trousers pulled taut beneath his chokha. Claude inhales against his cheek but doesn’t stop kissing him, doesn’t stop licking the roof of his mouth and petting his fingers through Lorenz’s long, silky hair.

Slowly, the swirl of fear and consternation fades. Under the ministrations of Claude’s lips and hands and tongue, Lorenz is stripped of his trappings and titles until he is only a man, parched for want of water and Claude the pitcher pouring endlessly.

_I want him_, he thinks, faintly delirious from the smell of roses. _I want this, and nothing else. _

“Lorenz,” Claude breathes—not demanding, only sighing, as though he can’t help himself. He tugs at his hair, gently, and nibbles demurely at the pale curve of Lorenz’s throat.

“No marks—”

“I know.” _Kiss_. His scruff leaves the slightest scraping burn, quickly soothed by soft, wet lips. “I know.”

He means to say, _no marks above the collar_, but Claude’s mouth on his skin has robbed him of all sense. Lorenz clings to his waist, delightfully sturdy and muscular, and pants softly, uselessly, as Claude laves his neck with careful attention. He’s more of a gentleman than Lorenz had imagined, and he says so, voice cracked and withering.

“Oh yeah?” Claude smiles. One hand tangles in his nape, tugging his back, back, until all Lorenz can see are the shreds of cloud growing thicker and thicker over the stars. Slight heat, the flare of dull teeth against his throat, just at the notch of his collarbone. And yet he waits. “Can I…?”

“Please,” Lorenz whispers. “Claude, please…!”

“Oh, I like it when you say my name like that.” Claude sounds far too pleased with himself as he bites down, worrying a red mark into Lorenz’s pale skin like a rose against fresh-fallen snow. Lorenz gasps a little cry into the empty night, and it seems to echo off the cathedral’s looming face. He stills.

“Claude—we should—we are in _public_…”

“It’s late,” Claude murmurs dismissively, examining his handiwork. His thumb presses to the spot, insistent, and the heat that emanates from it seems to travel like a lightning-bolt all the way to Lorenz’s groin. _Hells_. “But we can certainly retire if you like. My room or yours?”

“Claude—”

_Plink. Plink-plink._

Whatever pathetic protests he’s about to make die on his lips at the first patter of rain on his cheek. He glances skyward. The moon is entirely obscured, now, the stars a distant memory—heavy rain clouds have rolled in over the mountains.

Just like that, the fog of inaction fades. He grips Claude by the belt and hauls him bodily off the parapet. “Quickly, before we’re drenched.”

“_Oomph._” Caught off guard, Claude stumbles into him and wraps his arms around Lorenz’s waist without a care. “What’s the matter, afraid of getting a little wet?” He noses in beneath Lorenz’s ear and kisses the bare stretch of neck there, distracting him from his goal. _Damn him. _

But the weather has no mind for their affections. The raindrops patter harder against the stone, darkening it with specks that bleed together until the bridge is slick with it. At last Claude relents and grabs for Lorenz’s hand, tugging him toward the cathedral.

“Where are we going?” Lorenz calls over the rain. It’s nearly a proper torrent, now—the heavens have opened up, slowly and then all at once, and already his outer layer is soaked through, hair plastered to his face as he squints against the downpour.

“The Eyrie!”

Lorenz wants to protest, but if he delays them any further he’ll be soaked to the skin. So, with some reluctance, he races Claude along the bridge, a strange, bubbly feeling swirling in his chest. They run with their hands clasped, though it surely makes them clumsy. Claude is laughing as they run. Despite himself, Lorenz finds himself grinning, then laughing. It bursts out of him in a great wave, the two of them giggling like schoolboys as they dash to the base of the cathedral’s broad steps.

The portcullis is down, of course, and unmanned. They have no guards to spare, and Claude and the Professor agreed that the cathedral held little enough of value now to be a target for thieves. But Claude tugs them to the right, in the lee of the cathedral’s looming facade where it’s a little drier, down the steps to the heavy metal-studded door to the Eyrie.

At first Lorenz fears it will be locked, and it is; but Claude produces a key from his pocket and has the door open in a trice. Together they fall into the dark, straw-smelling entryway, gasping for breath and leaning together as though they can hardly manage to stand up on their own.

“The Eyrie? Really?” Lorenz demands as he begins to catch his breath. He straightens his rumpled tunic and squeezes water from his hair, mourning its perfect shape. Disrupted by the rainwater, it spills every which way, over his face and sticking to the back of his neck. “Hardly the place for a romantic tryst, Claude.”

“You only say that because you’ve never been. It’s the _perfect_ place for a tryst.” Claude shakes his head like a dog, sprinkling the floor and Lorenz with water droplets. “Am I right?”

Lorenz looks around. There is next to no light where they stand, but further down the hall he can see to the center of the structure, where a metal-roofed furnace keeps the Eyrie at an even temperature, even this far into the summer months. Wyverns are quite particular about their nests. Speaking of which. There are no stalls on the ground floor, of course, but above them he can hear the faint leathery rustle of wyverns stirring in their sleep, shuffling on their perches. Hopefully their rather undignified entry has not disturbed them.

“I have been here before,” he says, moving toward the dull, inviting heat. The tower is built in such a way that the warmth spreads evenly throughout, but he aches to get closer anyway, a shiver settling into his bones from the chill. “A time or two, when we were enrolled at the officer’s academy.”

“Oh right, I remember! Teach sent you out on wyvern patrol once. You fell off three feet up and sprained your wrist, and you refused to do it ever again.”

Lorenz huffs, holding his hands out to the well-tamped coals. “It was ten feet, in fact, and I broke my arm.”

“Right, right.” Claude sidles up behind him and rests his chin on Lorenz’s shoulder, though he surely must be on tiptoe to achieve it. “Who _was_ your partner that day…?”

Lorenz sighs. Of course he wouldn’t remember—it _was_ five years ago, after all. “It was you, Claude.”

“It _was_?” Claude exclaims with heavy-handed surprise. Not so forgetful after all, then. ”That’s right, I remember it now. I made terrible fun of you, as I recall.”

“You did.” He purses his lips at the memory, the pain and loathing muddled through the lens of several years. “Didn’t shut up the whole way to the infirmary.”

“Oh good, so it worked.”

“What worked, you insufferable man?”

“Taking your mind off it.” Claude reaches for the arm in question, his left, and cradles the delicate wrist gently as he brings it to his lips. “You were white as a sheet—whiter than usual, I mean—and I could see you were in a lot of pain…”

“You were trying to distract me from it? A noble but ultimately impossible feat, I fear.”

“Sort of.” Claude recedes, taking the warmth from his back, and Lorenz swallows a protest. “I knew you’d sooner throw yourself into the pond than be seen crying, so. I figured I’d pester you ’til you were too mad to cry.”

Lorenz knows Claude well enough by now to know when he’s… not lying, exactly, but manipulating the truth a little by the sound of his voice alone. He doesn’t need to look at him to know he’s being utterly sincere. Despite himself, a little warm ache of fondness tightens in his ribs, and he turns to meet Claude’s eyes in the dimness.

“You darling,” he says, and is delighted when Claude’s eyes widen with surprise at the endearment. “You were so good to us—to all of us. And I never really saw it, then.”

Claude doesn’t say anything. Embarrassed, Lorenz busies himself with trying to straighten out his hair, finger-combing it over his right shoulder.

“Well,” Claude says at last, “I’m sorry to dredge up bad memories.” His voice is warm, almost as warm as the hand that slips around Lorenz’s waist to hold him against Claude’s side. “And I’m sorry for getting us caught in the rain.”

“It’s nothing I can’t endure, my dear.”

“Even so.” He gives his hip a squeeze and steps back, starting on the buttons of his chokha. “I have to say, if these _darlings_ and _my dears_ are going to become a habit, I’m not opposed.”

Lorenz flushes slightly. “In private, perhaps.” He watches Claude’s nimble hands from under his eyelashes, deftly parting the light fabric all the way down to his knees. Underneath he’s wearing a simple white shirt tucked into Fódlan-style trousers, damp at the shoulders and unlaced halfway down his chest. Between the open plackets, his skin gleams with rainwater and sweat. Lorenz’s mouth is suddenly very dry. “Are—are you intending to stay the night here?”

“Nah, just until the rain passes. I wouldn’t subject you to a night in a _stable_, my lord.” The words are mocking, a bit, but his voice is too fond to lend the words any sting. He shakes out the coat and hangs it from a peg that looks meant for carrying tack. “Give me your tunic, before it soaks into your underthings.”

Belatedly, Lorenz reaches for the fastenings of his tunic. It’s a delicate dove grey, darker now with rain, and heavy. He had put it on without issue earlier in the day, but now each little silver clasp seems to wrestle against his grasp.

“Need help?” Claude asks, watching him.

Lorenz huffs and submits, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. “My fingers are cold.”

“Mmm.” The wet, dark curls of Claude’s hair threaten to tickle his nose as he works open Lorenz’s tunic expertly. “We’ll have to do something about that.”

There’s a strange weight to the air as Claude helps Lorenz out of his wet clothes. Lorenz is accustomed to having valets assist him with such personal tasks, as befitting the heir of Gloucester, but this feels… different. Claude’s eyes are warm and intent on his body, despite being shielded by the crisp, buttoned-up cotton of his shirt, not impersonal in the slightest; his hands are gentle as they pry him from his waistcoat. It surely won’t survive the night—the delicate embroidered silk was not meant to be dampened and hung in a stable, of all places—but Lorenz can’t bring himself to care overmuch. Not when Claude is there, flashing the nape of his neck like a lady lifting her skirts above her ankle as he arranges their clothing on hooks to dry. His hair is even curlier than usual, and a single dark coil hangs temptingly near his collar, glistening at its edge with a droplet of water on the verge of falling.

Unthinking, Lorenz reaches out and grazes the spot. The water droplet transfers easily to his finger and drops onto the floor. A diamond plucked from its casing. Claude goes still.

“Forgive me,” Lorenz says faintly. “You… your hair. It’s wet.”

“Oh yeah?” Claude’s voice is gently teasing. “I hadn’t noticed.” He runs a hand through it swiftly, pushing one of those artfully disarrayed curls from his forehead. Lorenz could cry for the loss.

_I should commission Ignatz to paint him, just like this. A mortal man—not a general, not a duke, not a king… just a man. _

“You’re staring,” Claude murmurs. He doesn’t sound displeased by the notion. In fact, his lips are quirked _just so_, curling at their edges like he can’t quite help himself. Despite the handful of steps that separate them, Lorenz feels as though they stand very close indeed. The air is heavy with it, warm and smokey; every breath he takes weighs his chest with wanting.

“You are difficult to look away from.” Lorenz blushes with the admission, but dares not drop his gaze. Not when Claude is looking at him so sweetly, like he’s been given a gift he wasn’t expecting to receive.

“I could say the same of you.”

Claude pushes his shirtsleeves up, baring strong brown forearms, and closes the distance between them with three easy strides. His hands are dry against Lorenz’s cheeks, and warm, as he pulls him into a kiss.

Like a humble flower beholden to the sun, Lorenz bends to him. His hands find Claude’s shoulders, tentative at first, then growing bolder as Claude’s tongue licks into his mouth, hands spreading along his collarbone and dragging down over his chest. A laugh burgeons behind Claude’s ribs, but Lorenz doesn’t feel made fun of. Claude is just like that: like sunlight, full of energy and love. Too much to hold. Forever releasing it in laughter, lest he stifle and perish. Lorenz wants to hear that laughter every day of his life.

The realization hurts. Despite the warmth and surety of having Claude in his arms, he can’t escape the knowledge that this is a temporary comfort. And yet he cannot tear himself away. Perhaps it is a weakness, a moral failing on his part—but Lorenz decides, as Claude grips his waist and eases him back, mouths still locked together, that he will accept that burden if it means even just a second more of this tender bliss.

His boot hits something sturdy and Lorenz gasps, nearly falling—but Claude has him. “Easy,” Claude whispers, smiling, and lowers him gently onto one of the grain sacks lining the wall. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but better than the floor. Better than the softest eiderdown mattress when Claude swings astride his lap and settles there, fingers coy at the point of Lorenz’s chin. “This all right?”

“Of course,” Lorenz breathes. “More than.”

Claude smiles, delighted, endlessly charming, and kisses him. Lorenz thinks he might fly apart. Even as Claude’s hands rub slowly up and down his arms, grounding him, he trembles and frays at the edges, seams threatening to pull and blister. He is too delicate for this much _feeling_. It pushes against him from the inside, raucous and unseemly, demanding to be heard.

“Darling,” Claude breathes against his hair, rocking forward just a bit. His shirt-front gapes a little, exposing more of his delightful bare skin to Lorenz’s eye. The sweet, poignant ache inside him snarls and grows hungry.

“If—if I may,” Lorenz stammers. His hands rest shyly against Claude’s stomach, where his shirt rumples and relaxes with every heaving breath.

“Goddess, _please_. If we’re really going to share a secret tryst, let’s do it right.”

Permission granted, Lorenz plucks the shirt from Claude’s belt and pushes it up over his head. His hair is even wilder afterward, chest broad and hairier than Lorenz had expected, but not unpleasantly so. He fumbles with the shirt a moment, unsure what to do with it, until Claude takes pity on him and throws it over a nearby grain bale.

Lorenz touches him. His skin is warm and soft, except where pale scars crisscross his body. One, pinker and newer than the rest, marches across his flank to his underarm, the path in reverse of a well-flung enemy javelin. Lorenz kisses it, very gently, and Claude’s ribs flare beneath his touch.

He is not ashamed of his lack of experience, necessarily—it is only proper that a man in his position save himself for the marriage bed, whatever Sylvain may think of it—but it does give him some pause as he considers what to do next. Claude, however, is all patience, content to pet through Lorenz’s damp hair and watch him through shadowed eyes. Emboldened, Lorenz lets his lips wander, kissing the knob of Claude’s shoulder, his collarbone, the hollow at the base of his throat. Down again to his sternum, hands hovering delicately at his sturdy waist. Claude hums approval and sighs, soft and luxuriant, as Lorenz gathers his courage and brushes his lips over one dark brown nipple. The flesh puckers readily beneath his lips, and he dares to extend his tongue. Above him, Claude shudders.

“Goddess, yes,” Claude whispers. A moment later, a kiss descends into his hair, and Lorenz redoubles his efforts, thrilling with victory when Claude whines and bucks forward. “Lorenz…”

“Mmm…?”

“You are… _ah…_ so beautiful.”

Lorenz is already warm, almost uncomfortably so, but Claude’s words send another surge of heat through him. He squirms beneath the weight of that citrine gaze. He’s never been called _beautiful_ before. He thinks he could get used to it.

“I’ve never seen you so…” Claude trails off, strangled, laughing a little as he thumbs Lorenz’s cheek. “So soft. So… wanting.” He shifts a little in his lap, and Lorenz can feel, as electrifying as a blade to his throat, a telltale shape in Claude’s trousers. He presses his thighs together, hoping his own is not quite so obvious. A futile hope, if Claude’s earthy groan is anything to go by. Claude cups his face and holds him still for a soft, exploratory kiss. “Can I…”

Lorenz nips his lower lip. “You? At a loss for words?”

“Hush. This is… perhaps as new to me as it is to you.”

He tries not to scoff in his face. “I find that difficult to believe.”

Claude shrugs, easy, unoffended. “Believe what you will. As long as I may have permission to unbutton your collar, Ser Lorenz?”

“Oh, is that all?” _Where_ has this teasing voice come from? Lorenz hardly recognizes himself. “Please, help yourself.”

Smiling, sly and private in the dark, Claude rests their foreheads together. If their noses brush together every now and then, coiling him tighter and hotter with every breath, that’s neither here nor there.

Soon enough, Claude has his collar open, and a few buttons below it besides, thumb to the delicate pulse hammering in Lorenz’s throat. Lorenz tips his chin back in silent invitation. Tries not to moan out loud when Claude’s calloused fingers tilt it back even further so that he can bury his mouth at the juncture of neck and shoulder.

“Please,” Lorenz rasps, fingers biting bruises into Claude’s hips. “Claude…”

“I’ll be gentle,” Claude soothes. Another kiss, wet and soft and entirely too refined.

“You don’t—have to be,” Lorenz admits, halting. Above him, Claude goes still. “If you don’t want.”

Claude hums low, a deep reverberation in his chest. And then, before Lorenz can offer further clarification, he feels teeth at the base of his throat. He yelps and bites savagely at his lower lip as Claude worries a slow, excruciatingly good bruise into his pale flesh.

“_Oh_,” Lorenz sighs. “Oh, that’s… _Claude_…”

Clever, infuriating man. Easy as steel slicing through silk, Claude’s hand trips down the front of his shirt, popping open buttons until he can comfortably spread his palms against Lorenz’s ribs. Lorenz heaves for breath beneath him and cries out at the blunt press of nails against his chest.

“So pretty,” Claude murmurs, admiring the fine pink trails his fingers leave behind. He bends to kiss him and Lorenz shifts restlessly, aching in his trousers. Claude must be, too, by the feel of him—but there’s some unspoken agreement to leave belts and laces be, so he must be content to shift and rock restlessly into Claude’s weight. Above him, Claude groans and braces one hand against the wall behind his head, hips kicking forward in a slow grind. “Fuck, Lorenz…”

Lorenz mewls—he can think of no other word for it, pathetic and high-pitched and needy—and buries his face in Claude’s neck for the embarrassment of it. Claude just laughs and holds the back of his head with his free hand, cradling him almost even as he ruts their hips together.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, nose buried at the crown of his head. “This isn’t—how I imagined it going, the first time.”

Lorenz huffs a humid breath against his neck and shuts his eyes. “How… how did you imagine it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Thought it would be somewhere a little more romantic.” Claude’s rhythm slows. Lorenz wants to protest, but he dare not disrupt the flow of Claude’s voice. “A bed, for starters. Silk sheets. Rose petals, maybe.” He pets the hair back from Lorenz’s face, nearly dry now, and sticking to his forehead with sweat. “Not half-dressed on a sack of grain, in the dark, smelling of… of hay and wyvern droppings…”

Lorenz smothers his laughing mouth with one hand, strictly ignoring the playful lick of Claude’s tongue against his palm. “Hush. This—you—” He hesitates and tries to catch his breath through the throbbing in his groin. “I did not expect to ever have even this much of you. I am… beyond lucky. Whatever happens, I will cherish this hour we’ve spent together, humble as it may be.”

Claude’s brow rumples adorably and his thumbs find the skin beneath Lorenz’s eyes, worn and bruised with restless sleep. “My dear Lorenz. You know you have only to ask, and I am yours. Entirely.”

He cannot bear this.

“Shut up,” Lorenz whispers, and for the first time dares to tangle a hand in Claude’s unruly hair. Claude’s plush, perfect mouth goes slack at the tension of his grip. _Interesting. _“If an hour is all we have, then let us not waste anymore of it with talk.”

“Pretty words, coming from you,” Claude snarks back. But he seems to be in agreement. Squirrely as a boy, he wriggles out of Lorenz’s lap and puts his knees to the straw-covered ground, kissing down his chest, his belly. Lorenz bites his lip, already swollen from Claude’s ruthless kisses, and watches as Claude flicks open his shirt and starts on the laces of his trousers. “This all right?” he asks, glancing up.

Lorenz jerks his chin. “Please.”

They make no more conversation, not with words. Claude, for all his professed inexperience, shows not a whit of anxiety as he pushes his face against Lorenz’s smallclothes and rubs his cheek against the hardness concealed there. He is sly, and catty—he looks up at Lorenz through his lashes, which are dark and long and as pretty as a girl’s, licking his lips and rubbing his cheek against him until Lorenz thinks he will go mad.

It’s like he’s waiting for something. For Lorenz to break, perhaps. Lorenz certainly feels on the verge of shattering. Claude’s cheekbones are even sharper from this angle as he licks demurely at Lorenz’s member through his smalls, seeming to savor the dampness spreading there. Lorenz wants to beg, to cry out—his fists are claws in the grain sack beneath him as he shudders and tries not to buck up into Claude’s face. But that same invisible hand stops him, as before, sealing his throat; he can only breathe, the harsh gulps of a drowning man, as he watches Claude finally peel his smalls away and bow his head.

Lorenz has been hard for some time, sweating in the warmth of the room with Claude’s weight all on him, but Claude is not put off. He is delicate, almost bird-like as he kisses the heated skin and runs his knuckles along the underside. Lorenz longs for his gloves, a cravat—anything to stuff inside his mouth to shut himself up. But all he has is his own hand, and he gnaws his knuckles raw and _still_ his choked, stifled moans fill the air around them, punctuated by the wet sounds of Claude’s mouth on his cock.

He has never felt anything like this. One or two awkward fumblings during his school days, only ever with girls, has not prepared him for the warmth of Claude’s tongue, the eager suction of his lips. Claude has turned him into another creature entirely—the basest version of himself, down to his bones, nothing but a live wire erect and humming with each new strike of lightning.

He nears the edge far too quickly. He can’t help himself. The inside of Claude’s cheek feels like silk against the head of his cock, and his clever hand strokes whatever he can’t fit in his mouth. It feels impossible—like his skin is being flayed, like someone has reached into his guts and _yanked_. Then Claude suckles the head and gives his bollocks a gentle squeeze, and Lorenz spends into his mouth with a shout, clocking his head on the wall behind him as his body writhes with the shock of it.

“There you are,” Claude murmurs. He’s still got his hand on Lorenz’s cock, squeezing it gently as a few more drops pearl up and smear against his thumb. He smiles, and the dull fireglow reflects a wet smear on his swollen lower lip. “Easy. You’re gorgeous. Beautiful.”

The Eyrie seems unbearably quiet all of a sudden. Lorenz realizes, as he gasps pathetically for breath and rubs his throbbing skull, that the rain outside has stopped.

“Well.” A little out of breath himself, Claude sits back on his heels and finally wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. His voice is hoarser than it had been five minutes ago. “How was that?”

Boneless, Lorenz slumps against the wall and shuts his eyes. “You really have to ask?”

A beat of silence. “That bad, eh?”

“What?” He blinks his eyes open blearily, though it takes effort. Goddess, what’s gotten into him? The grain sacks aren’t even _comfortable_, and yet he feels as if he could fall asleep right here without issue. “No, ridiculous man. It was perfect.” Heedless of the fact that his trousers are still open and his half-soft cock still hanging out, Lorenz reaches for him, cupping the back of his head tenderly. Claude’s wary eyes go soft as syrup and he lays his head against Lorenz’s thigh. “I’m only sorry you had to kneel on the floor. Hardly befitting…” A yawn strikes him from nowhere, leaving him no time to stifle it behind a hand. “Pardon. Hardly befitting a man of your station…”

“Ha! Yes, because getting blown on the floor of a wyvern coop is _befitting your station_.”

Lorenz colors at the crass phrasing, but he’s too delightfully floaty and warm to complain. Then he feels a damp puff of warm air as Claude breathes out against his thigh, and looks down to see Claude’s shoulder moving in a suspiciously rhythmic fashion.

“Claude.”

“Mmmm…” He looks up at him from where his head is pillowed, grinning lazily. “Yeah?”

He flushes hot but whispers, haltingly, “I want… to see. Please.”

“Oh?” Claude sounds surprised, but he gets up readily enough, bracing one knee on the outside of Lorenz’s thigh, one hand against the wall beside his head. Between them is all shadow: Claude’s body is backed against the firelight, and though it licks carefully at his edges like a lover, highlighting the musculature of his arm, the cut of his hips, the front of him is hard to make out. Still, Lorenz pins his eyes to where his trousers lay open against his hips, framing the slow pump of his hand around his cock.

He picks up the pace under Lorenz’s watchful eye. Skin against skin, punctuated with the quick, aborted rasp of his breathing. Claude bows his head, sweat beaded up on his brow like a carnal crown. “You. Can touch me, if you want.”

Of course Lorenz wants. He always does, and he thinks, ruefully and with some remorse, that he always will.

He reaches out and touches Claude’s chest like he had been too afraid to do before, lush and exploratory. Rolls his nipples between his fingers, scrapes delicate nails down his belly. Claude shudders and shoves his hips forward into his fist. “Fuck, Lorenz. Your hands…”

Lorenz holds his breath and grips his outstretched arm in one hand while the other trails down, down, following the dark line of body hair to where he’s fucking his own hand. Lorenz touches the head of his cock, smeared with precum. Claude goes still—still but for the gasping flexion of his diaphragm as he pants for breath.

“Is this all right, Claude?”

Claude nods, nostrils flaring. His hand trembles where it grips the base of his cock. Slowly, Lorenz forms his hand into a ring that fits snugly over the head, and pulls it back and forth, relishing the slickness. The texture. The _heat_. So hot, hotter than fire, like all the warmth in Claude’s body has been condensed to this single point.

“Lorenz,” Claude says suddenly, sharp and strangled. “I’m—”

Lorenz tightens his grip just slightly, watching the foreskin pull back, back. Testing. Teasing.

Above him, Claude lets out a small sob as he finds release. Seed splatters against Lorenz’s bare chest, the canvas he’s seated on. A droplet or two lands on the wooden floorboards where Claude had knelt to suck his cock just minutes before. When he’s done, Lorenz gathers his courage and leans forward, lapping gently at the head of Claude’s prick. It’s blood-hot, salty and slippery against his tongue. Claude _keens. _Shoves a hand into Lorenz’s hair to get a better look.

Lorenz wants to suck him properly, really feel the weight of him on his tongue; but he’s left it too long. Already Claude is softening, and even the slightest, most delicate pressure with his tongue has him panting with oversensitivity. Reluctant, Lorenz eases back and helps him sort out his clothes.

Claude is not as susceptible to the sleepy haze of orgasm, it seems; a minute or two of righting himself and dabbing his own seed from Lorenz’s stomach with a handkerchief, and he’s as bright and boisterous as if it were midday. By comparison Lorenz feels positively lethargic. But the rain has stopped, for now, and he has no intention of spending the night here, so he allows Claude to lever him up from his makeshift chair and begin refastening the buttons of his shirt.

They move around each other quietly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Claude’s chokha is still quite wet, so he merely folds it over his arm, draping his damp sash around his shoulders in concession to the nearly see-through fabric of his shirt. As expected, Lorenz’s waistcoat has shrunk so as to be nearly unwearable. Even still, he slips his arms into it and lets it hang open across his front as he wriggles into his clammy tunic.

Claude is waiting for him to be ready, standing slightly askance as if to grant him privacy. He smiles to meet Lorenz’s eyes and reaches out a hand. “May I walk you to your quarters, my dear?”

Lorenz nods swiftly and accepts his arm.

Stepping outside, he feels as though he’s walking into an entirely new world. A world in which he has kissed Claude, has confessed the secrets that have long preyed on his lonely mind. A world in which he has taken Claude’s cock into his mouth and watched him spend from it. He looks up at the cathedral, still large and looming, and feels no shame. Only elation, as if he’s taken a cord tied to his neck and cut it in twain.

Their walk back to the dormitories is quiet and free of interruptions. Lorenz feels a bit like he’s dreaming. The rain has washed the entire grounds clean—gone is the oppressive heat from earlier in the day, the taste of dry sawdust in the back of his throat. Water droplets sparkle in the grass beneath their feet like a carpet of diamonds, and the paving stones are dark and glistening as if they’ve been freshly quarried. A sense of _newness_ pervades everything. It matches the feeling in Lorenz’s breast. The feeling that time has been reset, somehow, turned back to the beginning—or not _the_ beginning, but a different one. The start of a path that perhaps was meant to have been followed all along.

They reach the door to his room far too soon. Torchlight flickers at even intervals along the walk, and so they are not completely hidden from potential prying eyes; yet neither of them hesitates. The kiss they share is warm and slightly damp, tasting of rainwater and salt.

“Don’t forget what I said before,” Claude whispers against his lips, loathe to part from him completely. “I will ask you again, when this is over.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” Gingerly, Lorenz finds the latch of his door and turns it in perfect silence. Yet the door remains shut. An invitation hovers on his tongue, unspoken—_come to bed with me. Stay the night. Just one night… _But they have already borrowed more time than they can justify. “Good night, Claude.”

“Goodnight, dearheart.” Hand to his breast, Claude bows deeply. His chokha flaps in the breeze, threatening to slip off his shoulder entirely as he straightens, eyes alight and knowing. “Sweet dreams.”

Lorenz slips into the room and shuts the door behind him.

He doesn’t know how, but he sleeps. Still in boots and trousers and shirt, though his wet outer layers at least are shed into a hapless pile on the floor, he bundles himself into his blankets and does not dream.

Something wakes him many hours later. Not the sun, which has long since risen—he has overslept. Not a sound, either, but a smell. Something sweet and clean-smelling, like a floral perfume. He rolls his head on the pillow and sees, on his desk, an entire vase full of blooming, fragrant roses, spilling over each other in a great joyous spray. Dark red.

He rises to run his fingers over the silky-soft petals and finds, almost hidden beneath the vase, a scrap of paper.

_For you, my dear one. I will not subject you to my terrible poetry on such short notice, so take these instead, as a token of my romantic affections. _(The word ‘romantic’ is underlined twice. How charming.)_ Yours, Claude. _

Poetry. Ah. Lorenz tucks the paper into his desk and retrieves his private notebook from a hidden compartment within the same drawer. Whatever is to come today, tomorrow, he at least will have this moment. He at least will have that hour—that single, shining, golden hour—to carry in his heart like a shield against the world.

He dips his quill into a fresh pot of ink and sets it to the page.

**Author's Note:**

> pls come live in claurenz hell with me it's so lonely (find me on twitter at @rachebones!!)
> 
> Details about Claude's clothes etc. are partly taken from this excellent [post](https://rorvk.tumblr.com/post/186830710067/fire-emblem-three-houses-middle-eastcentral) about his ethnic coding and design!! Any inconsistencies are my bad and I'm happy to fix them. The bits about the jewelry and earrings are entirely made up. I think the whole "gay earring" thing might be a bit outdated, but I have mlm friends who incorporate it into their char designs and I like the symbolism so I ran with it.


End file.
